Guild Wars 2

What I would like would be profession-specific quests / missions. Every trait row would have its own unique little mission that would take maybe 10 minutes. Story-wise, it’d be connected to your profession, and they would all be solo-able, and would scale up / down to your level.

Ideally, they could be connected to the individual trait line: say, you have to fight a fire elemental to unlock the “Fire” trait line for Elementalist. Or you have to do a small mission where you have to lay down some traps, to unlock the ranger “Traps” line.

So you’d have to do all five of these to unlock all five trait lines for a character.

That would be a nice little bit of extra flavor and progression, but it wouldn’t be an annoying obstacle.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

In the next 6 months, waiting for HOT to show up with new (and based on past experience, even LESS fun) trait system, I will have moved on. I hope you all have fun with new GW2.

I absolutely can’t fathom why so many are cheering already. This company is all about hype and hyperbole, then they spring the real deal and it’s never what you really wanted. I’m currently so disillusioned with this game I can’t even express my sadness. I have no interest at all in the expansion, especially if it’s something that has to be purchased. I’ve given more cash to this company than I care to admit. The buck stops here.

I haven’t played the game since April. If you don’t like the trait system or the way the game is in general at the moment, why are you still playing? Of course that’s going to make you sad :/

I occasionally (every 2 months or so) check back on GW2, and on this thread in specific, to see if any progress have been made. For a long time, there wasn’t. Now there are signs that maybe in the future the game will become playable again for me. That’s good news. I’m not overly optimistic yet, I’ll wait what the actual changes will be. But it’s good to know that at least something is being done.

(cont.)

2) Freedom and diversity in terms of playstyle. One of the things that fascinated me the most during the GW2 beta weekends, along with the lovely character design and exploring amazing beautiful cities like Rata Sum and Lion’s Arch, was how free and diverse the gameplay seemed to me. Me and my friends would create characters of each profession and take them to the Mists, and then try out all their different weapons and skills. I was fascinated by the idea that you could participate in PVP on an equal playing field from the first minute, without having to tediously farm gear (or anything else) in order to compete.

When playing GW2, I always really liked that I could switch up my playstyle whenever I wanted to. I wanna play a supportive Guardian with Mace and Staff? I spec the respective traits, equip the weapons, and I’m good to go. I wanna play a DPS guardian with Greatsword and Sword? I spec the respective traits, equip the weapons, and I’m good to go. This was fun. So much fun.

The trait changes in April make it so that you’re strongly compelled to think hard before you even begin a character: which playstyle do I want? And then go straight for those traits. If you ever want to try another playstyle, you’re severely disencouraged from that, because going out and trying your darndest to collect the missing traits (esp. when you require certain events for them, that just won’t happen, etc) seems like such a chore.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who would literally tell those who’d complain about this fact: “Well, what are you crying about, just farm the traits for build XYZ cause that’s the best for your profession. Why would you even want anything else, if you play anything else you’re not playing right, QQ moar.” I thought, if that’s the kind of player attitude and playstyle that arena.net creates their game for now …. okay, then I’m out. Again, “playing your way” is what initially drew me in to the game and kept me playing and entertained for a long while.

With all this said … I really miss the game I used to play and love. I miss Asura, I miss my guild, I miss Quaggans, I miss the cool fighting style that’s superior to every other MMO I’ve played. I haven’t played since April last year, and I find that quite sad. There are three things that happened in April, that, in combination, ruined the game for me: megaservers tearing apart the RP servers, Townclothes being removed and butchered for cookie-cutter costumes, and most importantly and most game-breaking of all: the trait system changes. If the latter was to be genuinely fixed, brought back to being as alt-friendly and diversity-promoting as the old system was, I’d like to give the game another chance. For old times’ sake.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Now that the HOT is out of the bag, we’re able to update this thread with more details. With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.

Thank you. When creating this new system, please keep in mind two things that I consider of the utmost importance, not just for my personal playing style, but for what GW2 originally stood for and what, I think, played a huge role in making the game so refreshing and popular at launch:

1) Alt friendliness. The game launched with more alt-friendly features built in than most other MMO’s I know (some of which have been copied by other MMO’s since ), and it only got better with the introduction of the account-wide purse, account-wide bonus luck unlocks, and things like that.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t as fixated on “max level endgame content” as other MMO’s, which is all the more reason why it entices creating alts. You’re not stuck on your one main because you have to go raiding with him 3 times a week. Instead, you’re free to create alts, explore different professions and races, and so on.

The main thing I did and enjoyed in GW2 was coming up with ideas for new characters and then creating that character and slowly leveling them. You can check out my account if you want, I have bought close to 10 character slots. I really enjoy leveling alts. I also enjoy doing map completion on them, when I feel like it. What I really don’t enjoy is being compelled to do the same, often incredibly difficult and tedious to get, events in order to even be able to play them the way I want to.

Another point here is that leveling new characters feels so much more boring, slow and unrewarding when you only get so few trait points, and start getting them so late. It was SO much fun to get a trait point every level starting at 11. I felt like I could actively improve my character from early on, having direct influence over them from early on, playing the way I want to from early on. I was proud of my character from early on, because even at level 16, they’d have some specific abilities that I wanted them to have, and that made them different from others of the same profession at level 16. “Playing your way”, this is the main thing I loved GW2 for.

Just checking in to see whether Arena.net has admitted yet that they messed up big time with this, but apparently they haven’t.

I had been avidly playing GW2 from beta till April 2014. Bought … 8 character slots in total, I think? Bought a bunch of minis, bought some town clothes. Leveled 9 characters to max level.

In April 2014, I stopped playing entirely. I can not play this game when the most basic functionality (traits) is a broken mess. My favorite thing to do in GW2 was creating new characters and leveling them up — this activity is completely ruined. So there’s nothing for me to enjoy anymore.
… the breaking of town clothes that I bought for actual money and the complete disregard for players in that context, along with the breaking of RP servers, were mere tips of the iceberg that compounded to me leaving the game.

I’m still very saddened by this. In the years I’ve played, I’ve come to love Tyria, and my characters, and the fighting system. I love the character of Taimi. But I can’t play the game in this state anymore. I’ve been back to WoW since April, and while that game has a lot of flaws as well (especially in the lore department), leveling alts is still fun there.

I’d love to return to Tyria, but the trait system needs to be fixed before that’s possible.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Bolded the important parts. They say they WILL give you a refund for outfits. Send them that link in response and that quote and show them that Anet has already stated that we WILL get refunds for them, not that we might.

Ah, thanks! I didn’t know that. I guess earmuffs are un-refundable though, because they were turned into armor? Genius decision, cause the only thing I ever wanted to wear the earmuffs with was the Wintersday dress … and I’m pretty sure those were meant and designed to be worn together, since they were released on the exact same day, both as town clothes.

I probably won’t ask for a refund on either though. I have no use for their gems. I’m not logging in again until they fix this. If they do fix it, I’ll want to use my Wintersday dress again. If they don’t fix it, I won’t ever use their gems again anyways.

nGumball.1283:

People reach 80 without udnerstanding anything in the game, perhaps introducing stuff step by step is a solution and while you may see it as grind, others may see it as challenging where you need to have a harder time, putting more effort into choosing ur weapons and skills for a better outcome.

We all started playing the game not very long ago. It’s only been 1,5 years. I remember the beta weekends as if they were just last week. I do not remember ever struggling to understand the concept of traits, or how they work. I do not remember ever being irritated or confused by the “abundance of choice”.

I remember being very pleasantly surprised by the choice and variety in the trait system, and very very pleasantly surprised about the fact that I got to spend a trait point every level. I used to be able to do that in WoW, until they botched their talent system too.

As for new players, most of them don’t seem to like it, if this thread and complaints in map chat are any indication. But then again, these are Western players, of course they’re not going to like an increase in boring grind. They’re likely not the target audience here.

nGumball.1283:

PS. My bad, didn’t notice the ’’trait’’ not ‘’trait-points’’ reference. Sorry.

S’alright. It’s confusing. They turned an easy to understand (1 trait point every level, new trait every 5 levels, gradual progression from level 11 on) system into a very complicated one, that at the same time manages to be more boring and unrewarding. Quite the feat.

Hystery.8415:

Awbee.8405:

This change to the basic racial townclothes feels, to me, as if they suddenly turned all Cultural Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 armor into undyable, unmatchable, black and red tonics. It’s beyond unacceptable.

You forgot “and lasting for 15 minutes”.

Oh, of course! It’s such an engaging mechanic to keep you on your toes during gameplay! Feel the thrill as you forget to click your Tier 3 tonic in your dungeon of choice! Pure adrenaline! It’s a FEATURE, not a bug!

… on another note, I also can’t refund my Wintersday dress, because it’s not a tonic.

I really wonder if outfits will be popular. They are so incredibly lacking in customization, it boggles my mind. I would in theory have liked to wear the pirate pants on a Light armor character of mine, seeing how they’re actual pants, which is a nice variety for light armor characters. But I can’t combine them with any other piece of armor. I also can’t combine them with any other outfit / former town clothes piece. I can only wear the full set. That is so incredibly boring.

That also means there is zero to look for with regards to outfit, at least when you enjoy your character not looking like a clone of 1000 other characters. So what if they release school girl outfits or posh clothing outfits or whatever else. You will never be able to combine those with anything else, you will always have the exact same look as everyone else. What is the point?

Feycat.4370:

Okay, I’m getting refunds for all the townclothes I bought (and yeah, it was a lot) and I’d resigned myself to that.

But my sylvari starter bikini turned into a tonic. And UNDYABLE RED AND BLACK tonic.

Most of my characters are sylvari. Why didn’t you guys make the default dye on sylvari leaves… you know, LEAF COLORS? Or just take the tone from the skin, the way some of the cultural armor does?

I was resigned to losing my townclothes because all of my sylvari at least could still wear their original townclothes, but now I can’t even use them! They look HORRIBLE on all my sylvari.

Can we PLEASE get those turned into outfits so we can dye them? Please?

I know, right? And we can’t even ask for refunds for those basic town clothes, because they weren’t bought in the gem store. But to me, they were a majorly appealing part of the unique feel of each of the races.

This change to the basic racial townclothes feels, to me, as if they suddenly turned all Cultural Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 armor into undyable, unmatchable, black and red tonics. It’s beyond unacceptable.

nGumball.1283:

So you used to have 15 traits and now he has 20? no offense but your comment is there just to create drama and the people who upvoted you either don’t play the game are pure haters cause the post doesn’t even make sense.

You are the one that doesn’t understand the new system. The traits are not just condensed from 5 points to 1 trait, they are delayed until level 30. At level 11, you started gaining traits, which means you got a trait at 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41, etc. So a level 41 player had access to 6 traits already. Actual traits, not just trait points. Traits that he could select based on his playstyle preferences, traits that made playing the game and leveling more interesting. (“Do I want to produce clones when I dodge? Do I want to get vigor when I use a shout?”)

Now, this same player on level 41 has access to 2 traits. Cause he got a trait at 30, and one at 36. TWO traits. He used to have many interesting gameplay choices by that point already, he had experienced compelling character and playstyle progression already. Now he has access to two godkitten traits, just like a 21 character previously did. You now feel as powerful as a level 20 character when you’re level 40, and your playstyle is as interesting and varied as back when you were level 20.

This is very clearly a push for the hardcore grindy oriented Asian market. I hope it’ll get them enough revenue to cancel out the mass exodus of Western players who came to this game under the promise that there won’t be boring grind.

Alice.8694:

I don’t see your point, I mean what are you actually expecting of them here? To make the game cripplingly easy for someone who cannot teach themselves?

Are you trolling?

They removed interesting choices and mechanics from the leveling process, which traits most definitely provided. So leveling is extremely boring now. In order to make up for the lack of traits in terms of difficulty level, they nerfed all mobs across Tyria across the board. So leveling should have the same difficulty level now, only much more boring.

Oh, and for max level characters with complete traits, it will be even more face-roll than it already was.

Do you see why your rant about difficulty level is inane? We’re not complaining because the trait changes make leveling more difficult, we’re complaining because the trait changes make leveling absolutely boring, grindy, unrewarding. The opposite of enjoyable.

Kalavier.1097:

The game isn’t that hard. If you need help, ASK. if you are in a guild, ask for help. Instead of complaining about it being too hard, look at what you are fighting (Is it a champ? a group event?) and ask for help to take it out in guild or map chat.

If you are having a hard time but not asking for help or advice, you are ruining the game for yourself, it is an MMO, not a single player game.

You say you aren’t ragequitting, but you are quitting. You are giving up without a try. Instead of taking a breath, asking for help, you delete everything.

“calmquitting”? Maybe. But you are still letting a bit of trouble and adversity tear you apart. I hope you don’t treat real life issues the same way.

It’s not about hard or easy, it’s about a feeling of progression, of reward, and it’s about boredom. If you could auto-attack to max level with ease, without ever gaining any additional skill, weapon abilities or traits, would you enjoy that? Why not? It’s easy!

While leveling, we used to have access to a wide variety of playstyles, letting us get to know the profession and the ways it can be played, letting us try out different ways in how we can kill mobs, and how we can make the gameplay more interesting for us. Do I want to hit harder with my axe, or do I want to heal myself each time I hit with my sword? That’s interesting.

This has been taken away, or crassly postponed. Why? There is absolutely no remotely good explanation for this.

ghost.3208:

You are aware that you’re still getting the same amount of traits that you were able to get before? The only change they did was to make the tool simpler by making you spend the trait points only when you are able to unlock a minor/major trait, how different is it from spending a single trait point that nets you +10 to a stat?

Now that’s someone I surely won’t miss.

Are you aware of how the trait system was changed? We’re not talking about the “1 click every level being changed to 1 click every 5 levels” thing. That’s also annoying, but not game-breaking for leveling characters. What’s game-breaking is that you only start getting access to traits at level 30. At level 30, you used to be able to have, what, six different traits? I’m saying traits, as in “run faster with axes equipped” or “produce a clone on dodge”, not trait points.

This is comparable to them locking all weapon skins except auto-attack until level 50. It feels extremely boring, grindy, and unrewarding. I came to play a game that claimed in high tones to “remove the grind from MMO’s”. Leveling in GW2 now feels worse then grinding a Korean MMO, and lots worse than leveling in WoW. No thanks.

Of course it doesn’t matter to people who already have all the 80s they ever wanted and will never level again. Then you can’t comment on the issue, because it doesn’t affect you, but it affects the new players, and those who like to level alts (and thus pay for character slots … lol. Not happening again).

So yes, I ragequit, not just because of this, but also very importantly because of the town clothes change. If some of the terrible changes regarding traits or town clothes are reverted, I’m open to returning, but if they aren’t, hell no. I play games to have fun, not to feel miserable.

What probably shocks me the most is that they even ripped our original, racial town clothing away from us. That is what me and my two friends were wearing when we were excitedly running around Rata Sum during the very first beta weekend. One of my fondest memories in this game. Each of us had a little fresh Asura, each of us had died our cool Asuran town clothes in our own look. We felt so immersed in this world.

And now all I have left is a tonic that will give me a black and red version of this piece, that I have to carry around in my inventory, and that I have to refresh every 15 minutes. I hate the colors black and red. My Asura’s townclothes were light blue, golden, and a light purple.

This patch not only disinclined me from ever leveling any character again (thanks to the trait changes), it also disinclined me from ever RPing again, ever buying anything in the gem shop again, and ever trusting the developers again. It also ruined my fondest memories of the game.

I cannot keep playing a game like this. Goodbye.

Wouldn’t want any nasty remnants of roleplaying in our game, wouldn’t we? Now that we finally found a way to kill off RP in this game by removing their favorite toy, the townclothing system.

I agree with everything you said. I loved the game to bits when I started playing, but it seems like everything I loved about it or had hopes for, gets ruined or scrapped. I enjoy RPing, and I love leveling characters — both got nerfed so extremely heavily with this patch and shown so much negligence, that I don’t even have the words to describe how utterly disappointed I am. I have so many alts that I wanted to level and RP on, now I don’t want to do any of that anymore. Why bother, if leveling is now a boring chore and roleplayers get kitten on and neglected even worse than before?

Apparently the character alignment (charming / dignified / ferocious, etc) was also removed with this patch. No big surprise here, since that was never utilised anyways. Again, one of the main aspects I was looking forward to when I bought a game. Such an utter waste.

WaveyDL.6945:

I only just got this game a few days ago and have managed to get to lvl 35.
My guy was going well and in most things I was having fun. But now he’s only got one trait point (not 25) and I feel like I took a giant step back.
I really liked the speed increase trait I had but I don’t think I can get it again until lvl 50? Did characters who are under 80 just get mega nerfed?

Yes, because arena.net apparently kittens on leveling players. Who cares, the main playerbase is all 80 now.

Leave while you can. I got attached to this game and got disappointed SO hard, between this horrible nerf to leveling alts and the town clothes disaster. It’s harder to get away when you’re already attached to your characters, but there’s a point where you got to draw the line with what you’re willing to take.

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

Oh, and throw in that these ‘tonics’ only last for 15 minutes, so you keep having to go back into your inventory and reactivating them if you’re hanging out for ‘too long’. FOO!

Wtf, seriously? I won’t even be able to use my own kitten racial town clothing anymore, for example while RP-ing, without refreshing it every 15 minutes?

Honestly, this feels like a belated April Fools joke. No company could make SUCH a terrible decision. Taking a perfectly working system and messing it up in ways that are so bad I honestly wouldn’t have been able to imagine.

So it’s just as bad as I expected. I don’t even feel motivated to log in and see the disaster for myself. Everything I’d want to say has been eloquently said already. Fix the town clothes.

This is beyond absurd, and ugly, and useless. We already have a lack of variety in armor in that males can only wear long boring stuff and females barely can wear anything without their kittens or kitten hanging out, and yet we get more and more and more stuff like this. Phoenix armor, phalanx armor … and why? Are the 14 year old hormone ranging teenagers who jerk it to their female human toon and think skimpy armor on males is “homosexual”, really the main target audience of this game?

Shiren.9532:

It was depressing to see Kristen Bornemann’s (Guild Wars 2 Development Director) write such an optimistic presentation on the two week release schedule for GW2 at the GDC. It seems like the higher ups are so focused and obsessed on what an achievement it is to release content every two weeks (which it is, I don’t want to distract from my point by giving the idea that the release schedule doesn’t require good work – it does) that they are losing sight of the context in which the content is experienced. People moaned about permanent content all year long, Colin told us we were heard and still the bulk of content released since then has been temporary. Players complain about achievement point grinds but they keep on coming. Players complain that content required them to play on ArenaNet’s timetable and not their own but you wouldn’t even know they read that from the way they continue to praise their release schedule without even recognising that the final product is different from a traditionally developed and released piece of content (I do believe the quality of content has suffered in their two week pipe line).

Very few content updates in that two week schedule had the quality of a more traditional MMO content release (whether it be an expansion or a content update which most MMOs experience). The two week format still has a quality vs quantity issue imo and that’s before you get to the temporary content issues.

I like the idea of ongoing updates to the game, but I don’t believe the Living World release schedule, poor story and gameplay are up to par. I certainly don’t miss the Living Story, designing a game with “keeping players around” as the sole focus is a recipe for bad decisions.

This, so much this, all of this. I strongly hope the people with the decision making power will realize this before it’s too late for the game.

They’ve said they’re trying to have the LS be like a TV show where you “want to zap in every week”. Except even with TV shows in today’s day and age, there’s probably a majority of people who don’t watch them every week when they come out, but buy the nice boxed DVD set and then watch them on their own time. TV shows don’t get erased from history once they’re aired, no, they’re available for sale and to re-watch them over and over again. People pay for DVD sets to get a coherent experience of content on their own time, the same is true for expansion sets …

I would have MUCH preferred it to pay 20$ and get the entire past year of Living Story in a nice, always replayable, always available when I want it, expansion set.

silvermember.8941:

this is an example of someone who doesn’t know anything. if this person did, he would havr realize that all the crap he just said is the exact opposite of what anet said a few weeks ago.

so ignore this guy.

Well, what’s true is that there will no longer be town clothes in the sense that it’s clothing that can’t be worn in combat.

So if swim suits and the like are released, they will be armor. And that’s just silly. I mean, it’s possible they might do that, but ruining what immersion the game has left is probably not the greatest idea of all time. Not looking forward to fighting dragons with lots of people around in speedos and christmas hats.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Based on your last paragraph it’s apparent you’re taking the decision personally. Anet does not want to do things that upset their paying customers. They aren’t doing this to harm you, to degrade your time and money, or anything else that may keep you from supporting the game. They’re doing it because they have to. Technologically. They have to. More people wanted to wear costumes in combat than wanted to mix and match town clothes for out of combat. Anet decided to change something the majority of the player base thought was antiquated and no good (search Halloween last year, how everyone was upset that costumes could not be worn in combat). As a result it is hurting you. They didn’t do this to hurt you. They did it to solve a problem and to improve the game.

If that’s the case, why aren’t they keeping the current town clothes tab intact (along with the town clothes that people bought), while at the same time allowing some of those pieces (those that are compatible with armor from a technical standpoint) to be worn in combat?

Or why aren’t they offering everyone who bought town clothes to get one tonic per item they bought, with the players being able to customize said tonic? So if I bought a cherry blossom shirt to wear it with my town skirt, I could make that a tonic. And I bought it to wear it with the riding pants, I could make that into a tonic. And so on.
This would remove the ability to mix further and further, but it would let us at least keep those few mix and match looks that we are really really fond of.

But they’re not doing that, because they simply don’t care that much. I don’t think it’s malicious intent, it’s more of a “What? Oh, we didn’t even think of that … well, it’s not really that important, is it?”

Same with the price of transmutation for leveling characters. It seems like that didn’t even cross the minds of those who created the new system. And when players brought it up, arena.net apparently was like “Ohhhhh right, it’s more expensive now while leveling … but well, not many players are leveling anymore, right? The majority is 80. So it’s not a big deal to most people.” Neglecting those to whom it is a big deal.

Same again with removing traits before level 30, and granting traits much slower while leveling. Leveling up is going to be a MAJOR pain in the kitten for professions like Mesmers now, who are pretty reliant on certain traits to play right, and those won’t be available till level 60 now.

I’ll repeat what I just said in another thread because it directly concerns the town clothes issue:

I’m not gaining a single thing from this town clothes change. I’ve never felt the desire to use town clothes in battle and won’t do so in the future. I’m not looking forward to see people wearing christmas hats in battle with dragons, it’s not exactly helpful for immersion. My idea of immersion is to wear practical / cool / mighty looking armor to battle, and then comfortable / stylish / flavour clothes in the town or while RP-ing. Sadly, I seem to be in the minority, and arena.net decided that they can’t make a profit off of people like me, so they’ll target those who want to fight Tequatl while wearing a bikini and sunglasses. Fine, but at least let me state my strong disagreement with this.

Also, this change could be handled a lot better than it is. Why not let players at least modify the tonic they’ll get? Why can’t I choose between a “Wintersday dress + hat” tonic, and a “Wintersday dress + Earmuffs” tonic?

There is not a single reason for why this is not being done, except that it’s apparently too much work for a target audience they don’t care for. Which is why I’m feeling very bitter about this.
Especially considering that I was a paying customer, I and many others did spend our money on the town clothes they were selling and used them in ways we liked. Now arena.net essentially tells us that they don’t care about us, our money isn’t good enough for them, and instead they try to target players who up until now did NOT spend money on town clothes, in the hopes that they might buy them once they’re useable in combat. And that’s why I / we feel disrespected.

Zero. It dropped from BL Chests for about a month during Wintersday 2012, and never again afterwards. Which is pretty messed up.

I’d easily pay 2k gems for that item in the gem store. I refuse to pay one-time hairkit changes, they’re of no use to someone like me who wishes to change her characters’ hair on a whim quite often.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Mine doesn’t get to use her combo either, but you can still hide the wintersday hat which it honestly all that matters to me. It’s a fine tradeoff, now that i can use the glasses as an armor helm on any of her other outfits.

I understand it sucks. As a roleplayer, I really do. But we’re getting so much more than we’re losing which is why this is never going to make sense to me.

I simply disagree, I’m not gaining a single thing from this town clothes change. I’ve never felt the desire to use town clothes in battle and won’t do so in the future. I’m not looking forward to see people wearing christmas hats in battle with dragons, it’s not exactly helpful for immersion. My idea of immersion is to wear practical / cool / mighty looking armor to battle, and then comfortable / stylish / flavour clothes in the town or while RP-ing. Sadly, I seem to be in the minority, and arena.net decided that they can’t make a profit off of people like me, so they’ll target those who want to fight Tequatl while wearing a bikini and sunglasses. Fine, but at least let me state my strong disagreement with this.

Also, this change could be handled a lot better than it is. Why not let players at least modify the tonic they’ll get? Why can’t I choose between a “Wintersday dress + hat” tonic, and a “Wintersday dress + Earmuffs” tonic?

There is not a single reason for why this is not being done, except that it’s apparently too much work for a target audience they don’t care for. Which is why I’m feeling very bitter about this.
Especially considering that I was a paying customer, I and many others (you too it seems) did spend our money on the town clothes they were selling and used them in ways we liked. Now arena.net essentially tells us that they don’t care about us, our money isn’t good enough for them, and instead they try to target players who up until now did not spend money on town clothes, in the hopes that they will buy them once they’re useable in combat. Not great.

The game is based on appearances though, it’s kind of the endgame, and a highly important part of the rest of the game as well. And there are many players who level alts all the time, constantly. I always have at least 3 characters that I’m leveling. Others probably have more. We already gave lots of our money to the game in order to pay for character slots, but when we’re being milked again and again by having to pay for more trans charges, and now we’re also going to have to pay more (relatively) while leveling.

While the guy who only ever leveled one character has probably not spent more than 10$ on the gem store yet, and is still rich as kitten in the game with 6 legendaries.

Alting or non-alting are different playstyles, neither of them is inferior or superior to the other, but it sucks if one of them costs a lot more.

RyuKaiser.7302:

There are plenty of games that allow me to change my look for free. LOTRO has it, DCUO has it, why the hell can’t any of the newer games have this amazing feature that allows you to customize your character?

WoW has it, too.

NCSoft has certain ideas on how to best make money off the shop, but I really don’t think they’re especially good. They love their RNG, which is bound to make players unhappy, and they love offering limited-use items (two weeks pass to go somewhere, one week bank access, one time hair customization, 5 transmutation charges). All of this makes you feel like you’re borrowing something. But when I spend money, I want to feel like I’m buying something. The “borrowing” feeling is exactly what I don’t like about mmo’s with a sub fee, but I’m starting to think that I’d prefer to pay a monthly fee for GW2 if, in exchange, I could OWN everything else in GW2 “for real”. Unlimited hair customization. Unlimited mobile bank access. Unlimited transmutation charges. Unlimited access to new areas.

Yeah, I’m actually positive I’d enjoy that more.

I’d also pay a lot more to own these things than I ever would to “borrow” them. I will never pay for a hair customization kit if I want to just change the look of my character’s hair. I want to change my character’s hair often, and if I can’t do that, I feel disinclined to change it at all. I’d pay 2k gems for an unlimited hair changer, but 0 for one-time-changers.

Why do you make me and my kitty cry, arena.net? I want to keep my lovely ear muffs … how else am I supposed to keep my ears warm in the winter?

Nage.1520:

I’m not sure how you think the monetization has changed. You’ve always needed transumation stones to change your look.

Yes, but on leveling characters you only needed one stone to change the look of one item. Seeing how you got 3 stones for map completion and 3 stones for city completion, I was always able to keep my leveling characters looking the way I want them to.

After the patch, changing the look of a leveling character is going to cost three times as much. That’s impossibly pricey for something that’s not going to last more than a few levels. This is going to force leveling players to do one of two things:

1) Transmute the armor of their leveling characters maybe 2 times during the entire leveling process, meaning they will have extremely outdated stats on their armor for most of the leveling, making it really hard to level and probably force them to grind to 80 in Queensdale.

2) Just not use the transmutation system until 80, running around in armor they find ugly and thus likely feeling unmotivated to play their characters.

This is especially unpleasant for those players for whom creating and leveling new characters is one of the major things they do in-game. And it’s especially bitter, since those players are among the ones who have probably spent the biggest amount of money on the game so far (character slots are expensive. Imagine what someone with 20+ alts has already paid.)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

You get to keep your armors and your skins. Your town clothes that literally had a mere 4 options for customization (so yes you looked like 1/4 of the player base of that race) are being refunded. What the heck guys? Is this really what you choose to meow about ?

This is my adorable little Asura, Awbee the Caring. Seeing how female Asura are restricted to wearing male armor only, she never gets to have any beautiful frills or feathers or other pretty stuff on her armor. On the other hand, she has to wear male armor that expose her chest and whatnot.

This Wintersday dress is a piece of townclothing and the only piece of armor in the game in where my Asura can actually wear the feminine equivalent of the outfit. And she looks adorable in it. I love it, but it’s not complete without the adorable little earmuffs on her big Asura ears.

After the patch, she won’t be able to wear this combination any more, and yes, this mightily kittenes me off. I don’t want to return either the Wintersday outfit nor the Earmuffs, because I love how they look on my character. I want her to be able to wear them together. What the heck else would I ever want to wear the earmuffs with? They were made for the Wintersday outfit! Yet, the combination will be impossible. kittened up.

Nage.1520:

Unless you’re a mad altoholic (in which case you’ll just have to deal with it), it’s not going to affect most people for more than a short time.

Shouldn’t arena.net be more friendly to altholics, considering them buying character slots is probably a big source of their income revenue?

Algreg.3629:

I really don´t see a big issue here. You outlevel your equipment that fast that any kind of resources is wasted on it. I guess most people even just equip what they can grab and move on to next level.

No, I care a lot about the way my characters look when they level. I’ll just play with level 30 stats at level 60, I guess. Gonna make leveling really unappealing, just as the fact that I won’t have access to important traits before level 60 …

The problem with the LS updates was that you felt super rushed to see everything and get everything done, because you knew that after 2 weeks or so, it would all be gone forever. To me and many others, that’s just stressful. I don’t want to feel stressed and rushed when playing a game.

What I wanted for my guardian since beta:

Power, Precision, Toughness, with Power as the main stat.

I wish there was a lot more female armor in the game that wasn’t skimpy, with unnecessary boob windows here and there (looking at you, heavy Whispers armor that I would love to wear on my guardian, but that boob window … I just can’t). Alternatively, at least introduce undershirts to the game. This would fix a lot of the skin-showing problems already.

Secondly, please, please, please, more feminine armor for female Asura (and Charr). Not skimpy, not sexy. Feminine, girly, frilly and fun. The prettiest my Asura can look is when she’s wearing her Wintersday dress, because that’s pretty much the only item where the Asura girls can get to wear the female version. And it’s beautiful. Please, please, more of that.

I also really don’t understand why in many cases the male and female armor look like completely different armor sets. Isn’t that actually more work for the designers? Just keep the armor very closely together in terms of looks and theme. Making them look very different is just creating lots of problems and making players unhappy. I bet almost everyone with a male (or fem Asura / Charr) character was super disappointed when they saw the “male version” of the Phoenix armor in the gem store. That armor really shouldn’t even have that name, there is nothing phoenix-like about it. Why couldn’t the males get feathers too? Why did they get a completely different, pretty much universally deemed inferior design?

Same with the Phalanx armor. One could argue that both the male version and the female version look good in their own way, but they look nothing alike. Just release them as different sets, with male and female versions of both sets. That way female characters could also wear the kitten looking “male” phalanx set, and male characters along with female Asura and Charr could also wear a battle-dress. Win-win.

There’s simply zero reason not to have it. Even if only 5% of the player base would regularly use it to make screenshots, why not add it?

Same thing about a better FoV …

nGumball.1283:

How many people actually play dungeons for fun like you though? I have been one of the people who ask other to enjoy the games instead of considering them as some kind of a job and none apparently listen.

Ideally, every player would play the game because it’s fun. I’m sure when arena.net set out to create this game (and when they released the manifesto) they truly wanted players to play for fun.

It’s not like there’s any possible downside to the game being fun, though. There can still be rewards at the end that the “farmers” can “farm”, but they could also have fun in the process. Seems like a win/win.

nGumball.1283:

Point is that people will always complain and the dungeons are simple and spammy thanks to player suggestions, they were more immersing and players raged and Anet nerfed. After such reactions, the company would simply not risk releasing any hard or challenging content.

It’s not really about difficulty level. Super difficult doesn’t equal fun, at all. Faceroll doesn’t equal fun either. There need to be interesting, engaging, rewarding, fun mechanics. I could give specific examples on how other games do this perfectly right but that would feel a bit crappy towards arena.net. I’m sure everyone has a bit of an idea what a good dungeon / boss mechanic might look like, and “hide in LOS and then zerg down” is not really it. (And certainly not if that’s every other boss fight in the game.)

nGumball.1283:

The dps meta isn’t a flaw, it is how the game was and still is, what do you await in a game with no dedicated roles?

Then why even have any gear in the game besides zerker? Isn’t it quite mean and confusing for new players to offer them a ton of different stat combos on armor, only to tell them afterwards “lol sorry, all of that is crap, the only right way to play this game is zerker”?

nGumball.1283:

Dungeons never can be fun because that’s how it is, you run something for rewards and use it as a farm, you get used to it and whatever beauty it has becomes meaningless and you are running it everyday.

What a sad, and untrue statement. You can enjoy things you do daily. I’ve immensely enjoyed dungeoneering in certain other MMO’s. I’ve also somewhat enjoyed Ascalon Catacombs before they were changed.

The key to enjoyable dungeons, in my opinion, is:

Interesting mechanics that are tough if you don’t know how to do them, but become easy and fun when you do know them.

In almost all of GW2’s dungeons and boss fights, that isn’t the case. You receive a massive amount of damage either way. Whether you die or not has often little to do with skill, but with 1-shot mechanics and random damage going out. “Dodge as much as you can, on every fight, in the entire game” isn’t a fun mechanic. Dodging is fun, but not as a substitute for actual mechanics.

I personally don’t care too much about dungeons, if they’re no fun to me, I just don’t run them, and still have other things to do in the game. The lack of permanent added content is a major, major buzzkill though, and really not just for me. It makes people leave, and it actually discourages them from coming back to the game.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

When the Tower of Madness appeared people started to speculate what was going to happen and after the Tower of madness we can still see that something has happened there. Let’s not forget about Lions Arch, the whole finnish of the first Living Story.

Well, guess how amazing it feels if you weren’t there for the Tower of Madness, and now you come back to the game and you just see that Kessex Hills is ugly and ruined now, there’s nothing you can do about it, and you also don’t know why it happened. Oh, and Lion’s Arch is ruined and ugly now too, but again, I wasn’t there to see it happening, so it’s just kind of depressing, making me feel left out.

There is NO incentive for players to return to the game. You think “Oh, I’ve been gone for a year, surely there is tons of new content for me to play now in GW2! New events, new zones, new dungeons, yay!” And then you return, but there is nothing new. So you think “well … I guess I can just leave again, then.”

And the really sad part about this is, it’s not like arena.net has been lazy. As a returning player, you’d think that arena.net has been doing nothing for an entire year, zero has been added … when in fact, lots of stuff has been added, but it’s all already been removed?! They build their game up, then tear it down.

If I could either have all the legendaries, or the perma hair contract …. I’d choose the hair.

._.

(That’s a YES PLEASE.)

That Asura was too overexcited and fell off

Tasty Pudding.3764:

Awbee.8405:

What about things like “today at 7 PM, there will be an event on [Server], everyone is invited!”

How can such things even happen anymore with megaservers?

“Today at 7PM, there will be an event in <map>, everyone is invited! Add Awbee or XxxLegolasXxx to your friends list and click Join.”

If that worked, and worked reliably, I’d be fine with that.

Silberfisch.3046:

It would be of interest how much the preferred “language” is weighted and how it is determined.
Simply from my choice of language in the launcher, from my account information/billing adress or will we be able to pick one?
Because at least in my case the language selected in the launcher (and thus ingame) differs from my native language which is also selectable. I use the english client because I dislike some of the translations and the voice actors in my native language.
Granted I wouldn’t use the english language for the game if had major difficulties with it, so communication with other players in general isn’t my concern. But a lot of my friendslist and guildmates use my native language as their basic setting.

So I would like to know how much of an impact my choice of language will have. And wether we will be able to pick our preffered language independently from our game settings or how it will be determined.

An interesting point.

I’m German, and when I visit the forums or any other part of the official GW2 website, it always puts me in the German forum first, I have to manually select to go to the english forums.

I use the English client however, and I play on an English-speaking server (the other servers I guest on are also always english-speaking). So I’d hope I’d continue to be sorted with English speaking players, if only because I don’t know any of the terms or names or spells in German

Fluffball.8307:

You can join different guilds, you can party with whomever you want, and you can guest to different servers. None of us know for sure (even the devs) how this will play out, but I don’t see anything changing other than having more people to play with.

Well, previously I always knew that no matter what other stuff I did before (PVP / PVE), my homeworld was Piken and I was bound to encounter roleplayers and roleplay there. I’m afraid that if I PVP / PVE for a while with the new system, it won’t automatically “recognize” me as an RPer anymore.

Of course, this is just a worry at the moment, and hopefully things will become clearer with the next two blog posts.

Zaoda.1653:

The mask is really nice, but ‘500 gems nice’? Nope. Pass.

If it was 200 gems or so, and could be dyed, I’d definitely get it.

Yeah, same here. I generally want to spend about 10-15€ per month of active playing on GW2, since that’s about the same amount I’d pay for a game with a sub fee. The pricier the things are, the fewer items I’m able to buy. (Especially since a lot of that money already goes into buying new character slots, I’m an altoholic And some things I just can’t pass on, like adorable special minis.)

Fluffball.8307:

You tag yourself for RP by joining an RP guild and playing with other RPers regularly, as well as being on the same server, according to the blogpost.

What about someone who likes RP, but also likes PVE, events, dungeons, PVP, WvW, or whatever else? If someone has an RP guild and RP friends, a dungeon guild and dungeon friends, a WvW guild and WvW friends, which server will they land on? What if someone like that wants to participate in an RP event at a certain time and place? Is there a guarantee they’ll be able to get into the same map as the RP event?

I’m hoping one of the blog posts in the next few days will mention a flag feature could also be used not just for RP, but for other stuff as well.

ColinJohanson.2394:

To maximize your odds of running into other RP players more often, you’ll want to make sure you’re on the same world (generally TC is viewed as the RP world), and in guilds with other RP members also on that same world. For example, everyone from TC currently will be set to high priority to sort together, same thing goes with people from RP guilds who are from TC.

We’ll continue to monitor, adapt and update the system as we go forward as well, for now I’d suggest seeing how it works once we enable the mega server system across all maps and then giving comments and feedback when you see it in action!

I’m currently not in an RP guild on Piken (though I might very well be in the future). So I worry that if I do some dungeons or PVP for a few days, I might “lose” my connection to Piken in the eyes of the new automatic system. Is there a chance for a manual “RP flag” or something of the sort?

An RP flag (that would be visible to others, and also determine which megaserver you end up on) would be great.

What about things like “today at 7 PM, there will be an event on [Server], everyone is invited!”

How can such things even happen anymore with megaservers?

Roleplaying can be a very active process, where you create and write down a backstory for your character, and then roleplay that role perfectly with other people. As if you were acting. You can spend entire evenings just being that role, saying what that character would say, doing what they would do.

But it’s also a passive attitude. I don’t have to actively roleplay every night to feel like an RPer, and to feel that an RP server is my homeworld. I have a backstory in my head for each of my characters, they all have a personality, they all have their own motivations and react to the world in certain ways. When I log in, I accompany my character on an adventure. Everything I come across, whether it’s an event or another person or an NPC, I encounter as my character, trying to feel how they would feel. To me, this is immersion.

The opposite of this is pure PVE / PVP, where your character is just a “tool” to get things done, it’s exchangeable. In another MMO I play, the majority of people usually don’t even read quest texts, and they race change their characters a lot. They have no connection to their characters, they don’t immerse into the world.